It’s been a good year for most of the students at Hampstead Elementary School, and sixth-grader Porag Das is graduating.
“He’s a wonderful student,” beams Grade 6 teacher Tami Brewster. “He’s driven to succeed. He’s motivated.”
But even with his many successes, the 13-year-old has had some challenges.
“I got into a fight with someone,” Das says. “He came raging at me, like hitting me and stuff.”
He says this happened more than once.
“He used to hit me a lot last year,” he tells Global News. “One of the reasons he tried to beat me up was because he lost a game.”
So as part of the school’s end-of-year activities, a special guest was invited. Jacques Rougeau was bullied as a pro wrestler, something he says traumatized him for a long time. He was at the school to give the students one last lesson.
“How to deal with bullies without using violence,” Rougeau explains.
He says he was able to get past the hurt, and talking to kids about it has helped.
“It was a therapy for me,” he tells Global News. “Every time I talk about it, I would release some problems I had on my own with the situation I went through with bullying.”
It’s the kind of lesson students like Das will take with them.
“We should ask them, ‘Are you OK, do you need any help?'” says the student. “Ask them if everything is OK at home.”
Das believes that kindness, no matter what, will win the day.